


In Need and Haste

by Sineala



Category: Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff, Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Magic, Community: trope_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-04 13:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/711310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After what happens to Connla, Alexios discovers hope from an unexpected source, and he learns that not all lost things stay lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Need and Haste

**Author's Note:**

> For Trope Bingo, the "fusion" square.
> 
> Thanks to Melannen for the idea, and to Carmarthen, Piscaria, and Osprey_Archer for taking a look at the draft. Thanks to Lysimache for editing my Latin.

There was nothing that could be done. Alexios sat on the edge of the cot, turning the dagger over and over in his hands. It was clean, every now and then catching a sparkle of moonlight from the high broken window, but an hour ago it had had Connla's blood on it. No amount of wiping would erase that. The peace was broken. The tribes would be called to war. There was only waiting now, waiting for the fight, and, if by the gods' favor he survived that, waiting for the board that would certainly strip him of his commission. Even his uncle could not save him twice.

But for now there was simply waiting. He wanted to scream, to run, to free himself of his cage -- to do anything, anything that might aid anyone. But the door was guarded, and there was nothing better on the other side of it.

All at once, it seemed to him that there was something he could do after all, and he both knew what it was and did not quite.

Outside, the ordinary noise of Castellum seemed to pause, and the moonlight fell again through the cracked window, fell and held, as if it too were waiting. There was a great sense of calm, a feeling of promise, and then the wind blew, hard. It seemed that it blew words with it, for very suddenly there were words in Alexios' mind, quite definite ones. _In Life's name, and for Life's sake..._

"In nomine Vitae," said Alexios to the light, his hand still fisted about the dagger, "et Vitae causa--"

How did he know this? Where were the words coming from? Strangest of all was the way they were deeply familiar. He'd said them before, he knew, with an eerie understanding, but how did he not know that he had done this? How could he have forgotten this?

"--dico me Arte usurum esse ut illae Vitae soli serviam," he said, in a great rush, not knowing whether he wanted to laugh or cry. There was more to it, he was sure, but at the same time he knew that this much meant something.

There was a sharp breath behind him, and abruptly Alexios was aware that he was not alone. He turned to see Hilarion in the doorway. The same queer light shone on him, pushing away the shadows, giving him a strange cast, almost paler than human. He was not smirking, nor slouching, but nor was he grim-faced. His eyes were wide, his lips half-parted, and he was staring at Alexios as though he were the answer to all things.

Then Hilarion smiled, just a little, gently, and he spoke as if each word had to be carefully chosen, lest Alexios be frightened away. "Go on, Alexios," he said, very softly. "If you wish it, you must say the words."

"I don't know." He could hear his voice shaking, on the edge of mad, wild laughter. "I don't know what I'm saying."

A memory: A scroll lying upon a table, with a well-worn case next to it. The writing was not Greek, nor Latin, but a swirl of elegant loops. He could read it. He'd been able to read it for years, but the first time he picked it up the scroll had only four lines, and those in Greek--

"I had a book once," he said, hesitantly. "I think I had a book. It said... it said what I'm saying now. How do I know these things?"

Hilarion's mouth twitched a little. "That's the Knowledge. You were Greek before. Most Greeks get it from books, I hear. But now you're British and can do things properly."

"I was British before, as well," said Alexios, with some asperity. Even in this strangeness, there would still be Hilarion's sardonic remarks. Something about that was comforting.

A shrug. "Not like you are now."

There was a truth to that, but Alexios could not quite say what it was. "So what do I do?"

"Make your Oath," said Hilarion, once again serious and unsmiling. "Finish it. If you choose to."

_What do I say?_ he wondered, but the rest of the words were there again, and he knew it was no choice at all; he said them, all of them, in three huge breaths, before he could stop and be afraid of what he was promising.

"There," he said. "That's done."

Outside, the world sprang to life again and Alexios smiled weakly. Something, someone had taken notice.

And Hilarion grinned once again, looking more like himself, as he stepped inside, making certain the door was closed behind him before he settled on the other end of the bed. " _Dai stihó_ , cousin," he said, and Alexios both knew the words intimately and had never heard them before. "I am on errantry, and in need and haste I greet you. Most of us are with you. It is a complicated thing to explain, and we are rather short on time."

He hardly understood that, but he seized on the last words anyway. "Before the Votadini attack?"

"That as well," said Hilarion. "You will find, I think, that you remember some of this, and you will know more as I keep talking, but at any rate: we are magicians, you and I."

The fact did not alarm him as much as it ought to have. He felt dizzy, unanchored, but at the same time at peace, as if this bizarre tale was of course true, had always been so. "And the Wolves? They are as well?" It seemed easier to ask for the extent of the story than to begin wondering about it.

"Many of the Wolves. Most of the officers, especially. Anthonius, Bericus, Vedrix, Brychanus, Cullen." Hilarion counted the names on his fingers. "Not Kaeso, not any longer. Lucius is... another thing altogether. He doesn't know about any of it. Rome doesn't, officially, and therefore Romans are classed _sevarfrith_ \--" Alexios had never heard the word before, but he had, he had-- "but we are a very special unit. And you--"

"What about me?"

"You had the magic before," said Hilarion, very calmly. "Or so the Knowledge told me."

Another memory: Kneeling on cold stone at Abusina, arms raised in supplication, praying for anything, _I will give up anything if the message makes it through, if we hold Germania. You can take it all away from me: my life, my Gift. I will give everything of myself_.

"I--" Alexios began, and then stopped, and then began again. It was starting to coalesce, a strange picture. "I renounced it? No. A bargain. I bargained with... the Powers. I offered my Gift, and they spared half my cohort. They let us win, in the end." It had not felt like winning, not then. "But... why do I not remember?"

"They took your memory with it," said Hilarion, in the tone of one intending to be helpful. "It is the done thing." His eyes went unfocused and he looked off into the distance, as if deep in thought. "It should be coming back soon, though. I am told."

"It seems unusual that they would offer me this again."

"Just because a thing is lost does not mean it cannot be found. And -- we need you. The Powers need you. I need you."

"You?" It was a very strange thing, coming from Hilarion, but it was an evening for strange things.

Hilarion nodded, his face open and earnest, and that was even more strange. "I have been working unpartnered for... well, years. I was so sure it was going to be you, when Gavros was transferred, but then you had no Gift. And you were such great friends with Cunorix that I had thought, perhaps, even if you had it you were meant to be his, for he is unpartnered as well."

"He is a magician too?"

"Of course." Hilarion chuckled. "Him and quite a few of the Votadini. You'd think it would make keeping peace easier, when so many of us are on the same side, but it's not enough by far. And the One riding Morvidd isn't inclined to listen to reason."

Errantry, Hilarion had said, and a huge tangle of thoughts and half-remembered things and bits of facts promptly slid into Alexios' mind, as if he had already known the things and was only now deciding to think about them. "You're on errantry to stop him. The druid."

Hilarion nodded. "And I could use a partner. So could you. It could be Cunorix for you, but--"

"I think he will have no great love for me now," said Alexios, and bit his lip before the sob welling in his throat could choke its way out. "Unless we should meet west of the sunset, where the Heart of Time lies."

"There is always Timeheart," Hilarion agreed, solemnly, after a pause, as if he hadn't expected Alexios to remember that yet either. "But in his grief I think the Hound-King has opened his mind to those he should not. And the Powers may have his Gift from him for it, I know not, but he can call the tribes to war without magic just as well. At any rate--" he unfolded himself and stood up-- "I have duties, Ducenarius."

Oh. There was that. His newest failure. Alexios winced. "You should not call me that. I am not your superior officer any longer."

Hilarion grinned crookedly, but the smile had a grim edge. "I think you will be again, soon. Though, you're right -- it is bad form to salute your partner. Very unequal. I suppose you will have to be Alexios. In private." The grin was wider.

"How can I do this? I hardly know anything," he said, helplessly, deciding for the moment that he was not even going to address the way Hilarion had said the last part, but even as he spoke about the rest of it he could hear the Speech echoing through his mind. He knew this. He remembered.

Another grin. "Don't worry," said Hilarion, and now the laughter on his face had spread once again to his eyes. "I'll help. Your uncle would be furious with me if I got you killed. And your mother would give me that look of utter disappointment -- you know the one. That one. I hope I should never see it. Why did she move from Ephesus for this, she would say. Hilarion, you shame your family, she would say." The imitation was... surprisingly good.

Alexios frowned. Surely everyone had heard of his uncle, but-- "How do you know my _mother_?"

"Senior Advisories. Both of them." Another laugh. "Ask the Knowledge. And if you've any more questions, ask Typhon."

"The cat?" he said, incredulously, but Hilarion was already gone.

The cat. Well.

There was a little pot of ink on the desk in the corner. Alexios reached for the pen, and without having to think, began to write on the bare wood in the long flowing curves of the Speech, a spell that tumbled and ran in circles across the desk, down across the floor. His Name, different now but still his, sealed in a knot.

He would have plenty of things to do, until the Wolves came for him. His Wolves. His magicians.

**Author's Note:**

> The particular version of the Oath that Alexios takes is based on the recension that appears in _So You Want To Be A Wizard_. Specifically, Alexios swears: "In Life's name, and in the cause of Life, I say that I will use the Art that I may serve only that Life." And then I figured that translation was hard and that was enough to get the point across.
> 
> I went for "magicians" rather than "wizards" because I really, really wanted something Latinate/Greek in this setting, even though that is obviously not the terminology in YW canon. 
> 
> Lucius, by the way, is a pillar/abdel. Of course he is.


End file.
